


For Every Action

by NicoleAnell



Category: Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleAnell/pseuds/NicoleAnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of character-centric fics where people other than Buffy react to Spike's soul.  This was my first baby attempt at Jossverse fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Xander

Dawn said, "So?"

That was literally the first word out of her mouth. The first word out of anyone's mouth actually, since there was an appropriate tumbleweed-quality silence after the great revelation. Silly teenager, interrupting our requirement to let crucial information hang in the air for - what? three minutes minimum? - allowing it the time and space it deserves to process itself in our lowly mortal brains.

Here's what happened. It was my idea to drop back in before going home, check with Dawn like she asked us to. I told her how everything was taken care of with wormboy, as spell reversal is a fun little perk (one of just a handful) of having an ex-ex-demon for an ex-fiancé. I told her Buffy would be back soon, Nancy would be back roughly never, and the bleached thing that wouldn't die would stay away if he knew what was good for him. (Which apparently was unnecessary information to a girl who'd already threatened to set him on fire in his sleep. Between that and "So?", Dawn could be my new personal hero.)

That's when Buffy came in, dropped a stake on the table, and flinched a little upon seeing the two of us watching TV. We all nodded some 'hey's at each other.

"Did you finish your homework?" she said.

"Didn't have that much," Dawn said, casually turning off the 'Spongebob' episode that neither of us quite wanted to admit we were invested in.

Buffy nodded. "Well... did you eat enough? I think I'll make-" Ah. She tried, bless her, to make an easy escape, only to be cut off mid- hospitality.

"Spike went home?" asked Dawn in the most falsely innocent tone she could. "Or back to the school?"

"He went... somewhere," and it was obvious she really didn't know where.

"What, you didn't check up on him?"

"*Dawn*-" she started, but the heat faded off, like she didn't even have the energy to be defensive. "It's complicated."

It was that vague little non-answer that made me open my mouth. "Doesn't seem that complicated to me, Buff. You keep up the secret late-night rendez-vous with the evil undead, and we'll just wait around for the fallout - you coulda warned us!" (A little part of my brain said I should lower my voice and I was being a dick, but even that part agreed I was basically right.)

"Xander, please. It's not that late, and it- slipped my mind..." it was a bad lie, that second part, and she knew it. "Look. I don't know why I didn't say anything, I was still - reacting to all of it, and- and now you know. So... I am sorry." She added that in like she could hear a question, or an accusation, that no one asked.

"Well... are you okay?" said Dawn quieter, sincerely. I sunk into my chair a little because I knew she'd become the grown-up of us in a matter of seconds.

"Sort of. I dunno." (As much as I wanted her to say, "Yes, of course I am, you dummies" you have to admire the honesty of it.) After a beat of staring at her shoes, Dawn went to her with a silent good-for-one-irony- free-hug offer. Buffy took it. Tension lifted.

"Well if he comes back here, he answers to me, and possibly to my heavy toolbelt," I offered. The girls smiled their best let's-humor-the- sarcastic-carpenter smiles. "I mean it. I have no problem getting help in horrible apocalypse prevention, wherever we can get it. But I want it on record that I'm opposed to Spike setting foot through that door again. Guy doesn't even knock? I say we break out the garlic and the ancient texts. We'll have him de-invited faster than you can say... you know, whatever mystic Latin hoo-ha you have to say to de-invite him."

Buffy's smile faltered. "Xander, we're not, um... there's something else."

So then she said it. She said it after a lot of hemming and hawing, and scrunching her eyebrows, and rambling something about a church before she cut herself off. She took a breath, looked up, and said, "He got his soul back. On purpose, I think."

And Dawn said "So?" Without even *near* the three minutes minimum to process that, she said "So?"

Buffy said, "A soul, Dawn." (Like she didn't catch it the first time.) "It means... I don't know, it's like- a conscience. Remorse, guilt, humanity, I think... guys, I just saw him and... he's not all that sane right now. He- he had a total meltdown back there, after Ronnie..."

She trailed off at that point, or maybe I just stopped listening, until she shook her head and sighed, "I thought you should know." I guess because neither of us did much besides pause and gather it all in, Buffy went upstairs. Dawn put the TV back on. I went home. There really isn't more to it than that.

I get this feeling I have to defend myself now, a silly idea maybe. I have to defend the fact I'm not singing hymns of praise and joy to pave Spike's road to redemption. Like maybe it makes me a bad friend or something. But then I think, no. No, I'm not being a bad friend to Buffy, 'cause she's not singing either. There's not even a hum of praise and definitely no joy - just exhaustion, worry, and defensiveness. So if my lack of enthusiasm isn't affecting her, then who am I being a bad friend to? Spike? He's not my friend. So it's fine, I can have my confused and pissy reaction guilt- free.

There's a very very simple rule I've stuck to, and it may be the most important and unalterable rule of my life. Do you know what it is?

I don't like vampires.

Now maybe you think that I oversimplify. Mr. Harris, you'd say, because you'd address me formally in my head, aren't you being kinda silly? Surely you like some vampires. What about the really nice ones with muscular bodies who wear leather?

No, I can't say I like any of them. It's a pretty easy rule of thumb. Here's a girl, nice smile, attractive, volunteers at a soup kitchen and enjoys long walks on the beach. Sounds good so far. What's that? Her favorite food is the blood of the innocent? I'm sorry, I have to say I no longer like her. Too much baggage. *stake, poof* Simple as that.

You see, Buffy has a habit of making things very complicated for herself. She has a two-word job description. It's not that hard to follow. I see it very clearly, I always have.

Once upon a time, I had a normal life. I went to school, hung out with my friends, and fudged my way through American Lit like everybody else. I did not know the shortest routes to the morgue, and the school library was an exotic land of danger and mystery through which I'd never tread. Then... well, I could go down the cheesy road and say something like 'she came along' and 'nothing was ever the same'. What actually happened was that she came along, I watched one of my best friends (let's get real, *only* friends) bare fangs and growl at me, he exploded into dust four inches from my face, and *then* nothing was ever the same. If you want to get technical about it.

Over the next few years, I learned all I ever needed to know about vampires. (I don't exactly regret this, by the way. I like being on the inside where I can help better than the mass-ignorance-is-bliss alternative.) I learned this myth that vampires are animals, when actually they're worse. Animals kill for food and survival. Demons kill sometimes for food, occasionally for survival, and mostly because they like it. Angel killed Ms. Calendar to torture Giles. The Master's guys killed Jesse because it was more fun than just leaving a hostage alone. Vampires are instinctive sadism walking around in bodies that should've died in the 19th century. I don't like them.

But amazingly, this can sometimes be an unpopular opinion. Lately Buffy gets this look - she averts her eyes slightly, and she keeps herself very still and tight-lipped for a few seconds. This is her Spike look. Her Angel look was a bit more emotional and sometimes involved swallowing or widened eyes, but the looking-away part was the same. It used to be her glancing at Willow, away from me, because yours truly just wouldn't understand. And Willow would glance back at me, through me, without communicating a syllable in my actual direction. A quiet nod of "Yes, Buffy, you're right, he wouldn't understand."

What happens is that the soul thing comes in, and all that stuff she explained to Dawn - remorse, conscience, guilt, whatever. You know what I think they should do with that remorse? I think they should take it and dust themselves before they fuck up and hurt anybody else. That's what I think.

So I guess they were right. I probably wouldn't understand. And I hate that.

I hate it so much that sometimes I want to tell Buffy there are some things I do understand. For example, I want to tell her the girl I lost my virginity to tried to break my heart easy, and when I didn't let her, she tried harder. I want to tell her what was going through my head when I was pinned to a cheap motel bed by somebody who could kill me in a fraction of a second. I tried to make it okay, I tried to think about the first time and how good it was, but all I could think about was Miss French the Giant Insect Lady for some reason, and it wasn't sexy. I want to tell her there was kissing and groping and shoving and biting and hands squeezing my neck and I was scared, I was scared, and I wanted it to stop.

(Freeze frame: I'm well aware that Angel saved me that night. You might think I owe him something for that. Like, at the very least, I should stop saying that vampires with souls should dust themselves. Well, shut up. No one asked you. I have a personal right to hold myself together with hasty generalizations, and by God, I'm going to use it.)

It did stop, and I want to tell Buffy how I was lying on that bed alone for an eternity, trying to understand it, trying to deal with the fact that funny crazy-hot Faith (who I was sort of in love with in that bullshit 18- year-old virgin way) could hate me so much. That maybe it was my fault, or maybe she was just nuts, or maybe I was having a long vivid nightmare. I was lying there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my body to assure me that when I got out of bed, I wouldn't throw up.

And I want to tell her this because I saw her in the bathroom. Nobody else did. It was... wrong. I mean, it was natural disaster levels of wrong. Believe me, I'd seen Buffy in every possible state of disarray before. I've seen her with her ass kicked, miserable, catatonic, spellbound and stupid, even pretty scared. I've seen her dead body lying on the ground twice when, frankly, once was too many times. But I saw her in the bathroom that night, and it was new. I saw her look... small. Lost. Hurt. Lots of words that are not meant to go next to "Buffy".

Right when I saw her, there was this moment - actually more than one, and I will probably never tell this to anyone as long as I live - I acknowledged inside that she was lying. Spike hadn't failed. People don't look that defeated after victory. So I'm standing there, trying as hard as I can to muster up the same kind of blind rage I had when I found out Spike was having *consensual* sex with someone I love, but all I can do is feel everything shifting and spinning and was she in pain and could I have helped and why did I have to snap at her this morning. As of today, I'm still recovering from those moments.

I got it later though. I could understand. It wasn't until she was pulling herself together and heading out to beat up some nerds, but pure denial finally kicked in and actually led to realistic thinking. I was wrong. Of course I was. Because she is Buffy, brave tough superhero. This isn't a "Lifetime" movie, this is a mighty morphin' power slayer kicking into gear against an idiot with a chip in his head. Of *course* she wouldn't have let him touch her unless she wanted him to (P.S. still so, SO not adjusting to the concept that she ever wanted him to). She kicked his ass hard and sent him packing. Case closed.

As for the way she looked, I got that too. I figured it out. She looked like that because it didn't matter that she made him stop, like it didn't matter that Faith didn't end up killing me. The trying is the important part. Spike tried to rape Buffy, and it didn't matter to her that he didn't succeed.

So it doesn't make a difference to me either.

I can be a really good, forgiving guy. I know I can. I saved the whole world with forgiveness once. But Willow was my best friend since kindergarten. Anya was very possibly the love of my life. Spike was a vampire (see: sadism, instinctive) we've all collectively known for about five years - and for three of those years, he was repeatedly trying to kill us. (See, again, he tried, and it doesn't matter that he never succeeded.) It's not exactly the same thing.

This is all the stuff I was thinking on the ride home, assuring myself that I am not a heartless man. Everything's okay if I can keep going back to Angelus, Spike, Faith, Jesse, the bathroom, over and over. Until the tiny bewildered guy in the back of my mind speaks up again, because he can't get over how after everything, after *every thing*, Spike had to go and do something unarguably decent. He had to smash the world to pieces and then dabble but-I-really-do-love-you in Elmer's Glue.

And somewhere inside, I'm just thinking...

So?


	2. Anya

What can I think? Really, what am I meant to think? I've never been in this situation before. Truthfully, I don't know how it involves me personally, and I don't know why anyone it affects would care how I feel, so I probably shouldn't waste any more time thinking about it at all.

Here's how I usually think: First I see something. I think exactly what I see. I say exactly what I think. See - think - say. It's not senseless, is it? Some people can be so... there are *hypocritical* people, moody people, and they can tell me it's wrong, it's not the way the world works, and blah blah blah. Well they don't have to listen to me. I'm sick of them anyway. I've been in this world a thousand years, so I'm gonna keep taking every minute as I see and think and say it. End of story.

Now what was I talking about? Oh, right. Spike. Ugh. I guess I should be happy for him. Is that the correct response? Happy was my first reaction. I saw him. I really *saw* him, and I knew he'd hit a loophole somehow, and so I was happy for him.

So great, whatever, I can remain happy. Let's all cheer. Woo hoo for Spike! Woo... oh wait, I'm sorry, I have to rest my jaw in between the cheering, because there's been a big purple bruise healing on it since Spike decided, in all his glorious souldom, to loosen my bottom teeth.

Not that I'm bitter. Oh no. Noooo, I'm fine and dandy.

Ow.

Let me start over, okay? I want to be happy. Until about an hour and a half ago, Spike never did anything to harm me. Sure he scowled a lot and said sarcastic things when he could've made himself more useful. And he made jokes I didn't get. And he talked like Giles, with that "bloody 'ell" foreigner stuff, which I know wasn't his fault entirely, but God, how annoying is that? Still, he wasn't unbearable to be around and I thought he liked me most of the time.

So I was thinking, sure, okay, I'll be happy for him. Really this time. I'll even speak to him again.

Spike, I'll say, in the spirit of friendship, I'm willing to forgive 'n forget, and now you can tell me how you got your soul back, please.

I can't help it, I'm curious. I can't stand it when people know something I don't. It's rude. And what I saw at the Bronze was too weird to forget, which is the only alternate option after "see". Otherwise, like I said, it's see-think-say. If I don't talk to Spike soon, I'll be stuck on "think" forever, and that part's never any fun.

Something is definitely going on. The way I saw Spike tonight... I've seen him lots of times before, but this time I saw *him*. His inner him. This is going to be very hard to explain in human terms. Vampires don't have reflections, right? The same way they don't groove with mirrors, they don't show themselves to us, vengeance demons and that type. I can *see* them, obviously, because they're in front of me a lot, but there's no real lasting, permanent- it's like a camera. No, not really like a camera, because vampires *can* be on camera, can't they? That's not what I mean at all. I'm just confusing myself. This is why I don't like the thinking!

And the soul or whatever it was I could see, I knew he did it himself - pretty impressive job. It was different, but there was nothing forced about it. It felt natural. You'd expect if there was this light inside him, this human-demon mesh he turned into, there would be some sign of struggle, a cosmic scratch here or there. But there wasn't. That's why I didn't even notice at first, because he was giving off the same general presence as Buffy and Xander and the women I talk to. It was fused into the rest of him as if it always had been, and it took me a little while to remember it wasn't supposed to be.

So I'm going to speak to him again and find out how, I decide, right this minute. As fast as I can seek him out and teleport my little-

"Anyanka." Oh... eep. "Where are we going now?"

I am not talking to Spike. Instead of talking to Spike, I am suddenly down in Arashmaharr, and I remain there for far too long, learning all about the joys and responsibilities of teleportation. I think D'Hoffryn is going to pull up a VCR and make me watch the field training video any second. It's very long and has hideous acting, and I'd much rather be anywhere in the human world right now. So I'm doing my best to convince him that I really think Spike's soul might be troubled enough to get him in prime vengeance mode. It's a lot of hooey, and I hate that I can't come up with anything better.

"Now, Anyanka," he says... and I realize I don't like him when he's smug like this. The way he smirks, like a sitcom father, makes me all nervous and fluttery, and I just want to go. "We couldn't just *walk* to the vampire?"

I agree, with a smile, we probably could. Silly of me and- and lazy too.

I open my eyes, inside the new Sunnydale High, with the distinct feeling I've been given a warning.

Spike's in the basement. I know because the place is abandoned, and the only noise I hear at all is coming from there. He says "Buffy" when he sees me. He looks... not the same as in the Bronze. Reflection-camera- soul-thing: check. Shirt: no check. General Spike attitude: no check. Big X and a question mark.

He frowns at me, because I'm not Buffy, then looks around blinking and stammering a lot. "It's... dreadful business, really, can't- can't- I wasn't didn't- bad. I'm... very bad." He nods at the end, and I assume he's proud he attached one coherent sentence to whatever it was he just said. Alrighty.

"Some basement," I say. I'm trying to be bright, I decide. Spread a little sunshine 'cause he looks like he could use it. Metaphorical sunshine, of course, not the kind that would kill him. For now.

He nods. "Buffy tell you about the spark. Come to watch. Best show in town, innit?"

"Spike," I say, very loudly. "This is Anya talking to you. Aaan-yuh. And- oh! It's the hair maybe. I WENT A FEW SHADES DARKER." (I'm a little too loud now, and he flinches. I detect a you're-bloody-insane-aren't-you stare, which I admit is pretty humorous coming from him.) "I'm thinking I don't want to greet the next millennium with dry or damaged hair, so there's this natural autumn brown I'm trying to head back to-"

He cuts me off, sneering. "I know your soddin' name, pet."

"Good. Okay. Very good!"

"Anya. William. William, Anya. William doesn't like the dark." (I honestly wonder if he's talking about my hair, just for a second.) "Fussy sort of boy. N-never be good for much."

I nod. Well, that window of sanity was fun while it lasted. "So you live down here now, huh? Cozy."

He sniffles and starts shuffling around. "Need me here. Needs me."

"Right. Listen, Spike, I... I'm willing to forego a formal apology for your hurtful and somewhat misogynistic behavior toward me, and in- in the spirit of friendship, I need a humble - no - I *humbly*, in the spirit of friendship..." Oh, bite me. "Spike, look. Nobody's being very nice to me and I just need you to fill me in a little!"

He stares. "Anya," he says, still set on proving that he knows my name. Or maybe he's finally connecting it to a memory.

"Spike, you wanna tell me what - what's going on?" I don't like the sound of my voice as I ask. It's all whiny and vulnerable, and I can't help it.

He nods. "It... everything inside, I- too much, too many lines, none of them rhyme." He shuts his eyes and sets his jaw. "Not *now*, ducks, I'm entertaining."

This is getting very annoying, because he might be answering and I have absolutely no idea what he's saying. I even consider using my powers. What else are they there for? I think, screw this, I can communicate with women scorned in any dialect under the sun. Back in the day, I could translate "bet you'd like to see him disemboweled" into Arabic, and now I'm gonna sit here smiling and nodding because somebody's not making sense?

Well, yeah. I will. I'll sit here smiling and nodding, because the last thing I need is the underworld getting on my case again for misuse of privileges. The pointlessness of this whole conversation in starting to sink in.

"You- you want something," says Spike. "Y-you don't just- barge in, that's- poor manners. That's... I- I know. No, I know. Wish. Wish. Shh. Shhhhh. Quiet now. Telly time."

Goddammit, I don't have time for this. I could be in Spain right now. I could be sweating in a sundress, drinking tequilas and watching stupid fat people being gored by bulls.

He's limping and hunched over when he walks near me. This is different also, not like at the Bronze. He's all scarred up now.

"What happened to your-? Oh gee, um, Spike, come here..." Heavy marks on his chest, lots of them. It's all red and peely, some places worse than others. "I- I can get you something for that."

"No touching, no n- no. No." I was not, just to be clear on this, within three feet of him. He sits on the floor.

The English language is failing me. "I really think... Spike... William... you should get o-ointment on that. It'll get really gross."

He's making this noise, a whimpering, humming noise. Like "nnnnn", sort of. It reminds me of little babies, and I want to give Spike a hug and some colorful band-aids and a bottle of juice. But he just told me not to touch him, and I was never big with motherly patience. (Speaking of which, I decided about a week ago, watching a pigtailed girl on a park swing, that Xander probably would've been a terrible father, but that's totally beside the point.)

I say, "Stop. Just stop it, Spike."

"Like you care. Like you bloody care, right? You- you know how it is. You know aaaall about..." and his face goes dark. "Punishment," he concludes.

I think about Ronnie and the fat people gored by bulls, and I shudder a little.

"Right. Right. Bet you could do loads of the ol' vengeance on me, couldn't you? I'm very bad, Anya."

"That's different," I say as convincingly as I can manage. "Stop this right now. You're my friend."

He giggles. He actually giggles at me. "I would be. Naughty girl, yeah? Went more'n a few shades back. All going back, you know. All of it 'til there's nothing left. You see that, or just me?" He gets quieter, intense. "Tell me, good little demon, you see inside now? See what I'm thinking?"

I do and I don't, and I'm nervous because I doubt my lame reflection-camera analogy is going to get through to him today. "What are you thinking?"

"Too many lines. All of it, going, gone. Can't stop it. You know that. Come to watch. Wish. Watch. 'S what you do, right?" He looks down at the floor, choking. "I *tried*..."

That's enough. I need to get out of here. I need to not see anything else that I can't understand, and that I won't want to think or talk about ever.

Spike shoots his eyes back up, full attention, when I head for the exit. "Don't leave me don't christ please don't leave..." He's crying.

"Spike. Honey. I-I'll come back, okay? I have to go..." (I struggle to come up with somewhere I might potentially have to go) "to the... hospital. To apologize to Ronnie." (What the hell? I panicked.)

Spike says, "What's that?" I think the crazy bastard was actually listening to me. He has follow-up questions. I really do want him dead for this, I swear.

"Wormy Ronnie. I'm gonna tell him, you know, that I'm sorry. For making him a big worm. And for, um, causing the emotional trauma of being a big worm. Even though he was a jerk.... It wasn't fair."

This is all coming off the top of my head, and it worries me that it might be some kind of insight.

Spike murmurs something and I try to ignore him. "So, now, I'm going to go and wish him luck as a productive member of human society. And I plan to buy him a gift at the tax-free shop, perhaps some suitably-priced flowers. And I'll tell him that you said hi."

He keeps muttering stuff to himself, but it seems to be slightly calmer nonsense than it was a minute ago, and he's not even looking at me anymore, so I run.

I feel much better now. Out of the basement and the new school and the "think" phase, moving on with my life. I'll come back and see him, I mean. I'm not ruling that out. It's just I'm very busy these days. My boss isn't happy with me, and I'm on call all hours of the day, and I can't spend all my time talking to loonies. I wasn't even making him feel better, you know? I was just there, when I had lots of other places to be.

Not that I'm actually gonna go visit Ronnie.

I mean, that's just stupid. It's not like Spike's gonna know. I probably gave him too much credit thinking that he'd remember who Ronnie *is*.

I even did figure out a way to explain the Bronze - you know, what I saw in Spike - without troubling analogies, just in case I ever need to tell anyone about it. I saw it looking at him again. There's this *thing* inside. The self, the true self, whether it's happy or miserable or babbling nonsense. And I'm still happy he found a loophole and put it in there. Most people look right through - I did it when I was human. But if you've ever seen it, you know. You know ones who don't have it have lost something bigger than love.

Spike was one of those before, I know it for a fact. First time I saw him after I became a vengeance demon again... well you know, we drank a lot and conversed and there were orgasms. Believe me, I was close enough to tell. It's not how hard your chest is, or how nice you smell, or how kind and accommodating you can be. If you're empty, you're empty. You're no one. Clean. Blank. Like D'Hoffryn. Like me, I guess.

When demons look at me, I wonder what they see. Do they know what I lost?

Oh, enough of this crap. I have a job, that's it. I am an empowered modern woman who does not mind being single, and I take pride in my career.

I'm just gonna... pass by and send the flowers up to Ronnie. Maybe.

Hospital was practically on my way home. I bet they've got some sort of anonymous sympathy card that can be attached.

Walking down the street, I think - "Anonymous: from no one" - without meaning to, because it's all I can.


	3. Willow

I guess I'm here right now because of Spike.

That's a real selfish way to look at this, isn't it? Spike does something absolutely *amazing* and is in all kinds of torment over it, and I sit here with my best friend and a glass of water, in a warm place that's not a dark basement, talking about me, me, me. Add it to the list of huge I'm-sorrys.

It started a little after Buffy and Xander saved me. I understand the not telling me right away. Everyone was going through a lot, and... I know I'm the last person who should complain about being left out, after what I did.

Anya actually mentioned something about Spike being insane. But then Anya has a tendency to be - well, *Anya*. I didn't expect... I don't really know what I expected. In the middle of everything else going on, I guess I didn't think about it much until I saw him.

He was bad. Not Big Bad bad, obviously, the other kind. He was really gone, and it was pretty scary. (I think pre-soul, post-chip Spike would've enjoyed being able to scare me again, wouldn't he?)

So sometime later, I asked Xander about it. It was still sort of easier to talk to him at that point, even if it was just asking about Spike under my breath, afraid it was something big I should be tip-toeing around. And Xander had this long sigh (definitely peeved about something) and told me I should probably talk to Buffy. 'Course that wasn't the answer I wanted, because talking to Buffy would mean I'd probably have to get a lot of other things out of the way first, important things, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for that yet.

But later there was meditation, and I sort of had a joint conversation with Buffy and Gaia, and everything started to feel safe again. I was being trusted and it felt like *I* was safe, safe to be around, for the first time in a while, if that makes sense. Eventually I did get to ask her about him, and she told me.

She said, "He's got a soul," as if each word weighed a thousand tons. And I suppose, all put together, they did. They just about crushed me for a minute.

"Wow," I said. "Buffy, that's... wow."

"I know. Colossal wow."

The optimist sidekick in me lit up. "Well, this is good. Right? It's really good. It's... like a miracle, Buffy."

She smiles, the kind of smile you have to force a little. "That's one I haven't gotten yet."

"Buffy, of course, it's- it's great. I thought - oh God - I thought this whole 'beneath us' thing had something to do with it the way he's acting."

"I'm still not sure it doesn't." (Right. Duh. There's such a thing as too much sidekicky optimism. Still-)

"Still, we don't know, this- this could be normal. This crazy rambly thing could be a normal stage. It probably *is* normal. 'Cause, well, Angel. We don't know what it was like for him. M-maybe it took him a few months to adjust too. Or longer. That was a hundred and something years ago, and- and the second time, he was in hell for a while, literally. For all we know, this could just be a transitional stage, like- like a cocoon for the soul. I-it makes the brain all jumbly, but then it wears off and they grow out of it. We should call Angel. Did you call Angel?"

"Will, slow down. Yeah, I... I will. Soon."

"And Giles! He could know stuff too. He knows a lot of stuff -" I cut myself off and frowned at her, half-serious. "And even if he doesn't, you know, it wouldn't kill you to call him once in a while."

She almost laughed, I think, but it sounded too close to suffocating. "I'm handling one thing at a time, okay?"

"Okay. Sorry." I wasn't trying to be in big pressure mode, really. It's just hard for me to hear stuff like that and keep filtering between my brain and my mouth. "Wow" even slipped out one more time.

"No one's denying the wow."

"Yeah, I know. Oh, but... Buffy, do you think-? If there's one of those happiness clauses again, we really need to be careful. You know, that stuff gets stuck in the fine print, and you think, 'la la, nothing to worry about' and then, pfft, back to the evil."

"I don't think-"

"But no, I didn't mean I think *you're* definitely gonna go and... anymore... 'cause maybe Anya, for one thing. Just in general. I wasn't saying you'd even think about giving Spike a moment of happin- wait, this is coming out wrong. I don't mean you wouldn't make him happy - not that you would... n-not that you don't want to. Not that you *should* want-"

She cuts in, "It's not..." I take my cue to stop babbling. "...a curse. I don't think it is anyway."

"Oh. Good. Again. Good, for him. Right?" She exhaled and shook her head, kinda the verbal equivalent of *shrug*. I asked her what it was.

"He made it sound like... like he did it himself. He did it to himself."

"Oh," I said. "Oh.... oh boy."

I stopped asking questions around then, because the look on her face said she didn't have answers. So I just thought about it after that, by myself, giving it a week or so to sink in.

I thought, how many ways are there to get a soul back? I only knew the one. And it was so much trouble for everyone to get it, to have it translated, to find it again, and people kept dying. And now, this Spike thing - maybe it's just easier if you want it? Can a vampire turn it on anytime he wants to? That doesn't seem right though, not with all the trouble it took the rest of us. And I never even thought that could happen, the wanting-it part. It was so out of the question with Angel. Not that it makes him a bad person or anything- or less of a good guy than Spike, I'd never think that. That voice that makes you stop and think can mean a lot. If it's not working... well, this is an authority on the subject talking. I'm the last person who should be judging either of them.

I... never get to judge anybody again, do I?

What we did on him, when we did it - when *I* did it - it was powerful. It was nothing near what I experienced this summer or- the time before- but it was big. For me, it was like... beyond regular words. I'd only done minor chanting and candle stuff, and suddenly I'm in my hospital bed feeling things, channeling things, from places so much greater than I am. And I could make them work for me. Maybe that's when...

Maybe the last four years of my life could be undone by going straight back to that spell over Angel. But would I want them to? All things considered, selfishness turned off, that question's way too big to think about. I have enough thoughts in my head without it. There's so much...

Like, okay, here's another concerned Spike thought that doesn't have anything to do with me. When Angel changed in the first place - when he lost his soul - he was a completely different person. *Everything* in him was different. He was dead, and there was this evil nasty guy walking around instead. So I'm thinking, how much does the soul matter? Tons. People's entire personalities can be erased just like that, in an instant. How much of you can stay in, really?

So if works the opposite way... suppose there's some really sweet English guy that got erased inside Spike a long time ago. Now he gets free, and I wonder (as weird as this sounds) what happens to *our* Spike? The whole bloodlusting, chain-smoking, bitter insult guy. Is he gone or still in there somewhere? He's not there right now, 'cause he's all crazy, but when that goes away... who does he turn into?

Can we even still call him "Spike"? Maybe - we don't know - maybe with the soul, he'll want something a little less pointy.

Is it really yucky for me to think I'd probably miss him a little, if he did become William the Non-bloody? I admit it, I probably would. There's a million reasons *not* to miss Spike, I get that. But overall, how bad was he when he wasn't being diabolical and failing? Sometimes he really was good. There were even times, once and a while, when it wasn't just because he wanted something.

It's not like I ever forgot who he was or anything. I know he nearly killed me - me, specifically - twice. I know he did a lot of horrible things, and he'd definitely still be doing them if he could, and he has no shame at all in how much he still wants to do the horrible things he'd be doing.

But even with that, I just feel like there's something you have to sort of like about Spike, at least the chipped version. First of all, he's... let's face it, he's completely pathetic. Total loser - and he knew it most of the time too, under the whole macho bravado thing. You know those lobsters in the tank at a seafood restaurant, with the claws all taped up? Spike used to remind me of them. Yeah, you'd have to be nuts to take the tape off one and expect it not to snap at your fingers. The tape is good, I'm all "yay" for tape. But that lobster in the tiny tank, cramped in with all the others and just waiting to be taken away and cooked, hour after hour, you have to feel sorry for him. It's a harsh world out there, and he can't even protect himself a little, and he didn't ask to be taken out of the ocean where he could snap at people's fingers and legs all day and okay, you get my point, this analogy has to end. I felt sorry for Spike. He came to us for help, and he was all sad and alone, and everybody was just - they were *bitching* at him, and no wonder he wanted to play villain all the time.

And, I mean, the poor guy falls in love with Buffy then? Of all the dumb luck. (Bizarre, out of left-field luck that defies all natural laws.) And sure I felt sorry for him again. Believe me, I understood the basic wrongness of it - I can't say a murderer being reformed against his or her will would be my ideal love connection either. Still, he loves her, she rejects him, and he finds a whole new level of self-pity to sink into. I can't help but empathize with unrequited love. There was Xander for starters - please, I'm more than over it now, but I remember what it felt like. So to take all that hopelessness and keep caring anyway, keep doing *good* things not because you want love back, but because you already feel it inside and just can't help it... I like Spike for that. I can't not like him.

Come on, Buffy was *dead* for a while, for a whole summer, and he could've walked away or gone super evil or killed himself or anything, but instead he just kept fighting on our side and protecting Dawnie, because he knew that's what Buffy would've wanted. And I couldn't even... I-

I didn't even.

I didn't do that for Tara.

I didn't have that in me.

Back to how I can't judge anyone. Back to me, me... me using poor Spike (poor Spike!) as a way to focus my attention on something else.

It did have to be upsetting for him though. Sudden guilt, the way it hits like a crippling force after just *two days* of damage, 48 hours of blood and fear and venom - I can't imagine what that would feel like after a century. No wonder Spike's talking to himself. (Not to forget the possibility we don't call him Spike anymore, because he's back to Mr. 1800s England who suddenly woke up a vampire in the middle of nowhere. He must've been so scared.)

Oh, here's another fun idea. Would *this* Spike, as opposed to normal Spike...

(I won't even bring this up to her, I won't, I cross my fingers I won't)

Would he still love Buffy?

Well - probably. 'Cause... because I don't see why not, right? Unless it was the angry soulless vampire part of him that loved her, and now he's gonna move forward and suppress that? That wouldn't make any sense.

Would she love him back?

Yikes. It took me that long to realize it, I was sitting there all worried about him, and I barely even thought... Oh, Buffy.

I don't know. I really don't. My gut says there's *something* there, there has to be, but love is a pretty strong word for it. I know if she just wanted to self-destruct last year, there are plenty of ways she could've done it without sleeping with Spike. There have to be reasons.

But now I feel like I'd have to go walking around in her subconscious again to find out. In high school, I bet she'd just tell me. We'd sit in our PJs with a bag of chips, and there would be officially no censorship or truth evasion, just the two of us soul-bearing, joking, and probably crying. It's been such a long time since we could do that. I never had so many questions she didn't have answers to, or the other way around I guess. Maybe we grew up. Growing up could mean going through things - *doing* things - that you can't explain or understand yourself, so you know there's no way even your best friend would understand. I'm starting to get this idea that the point of friendship is that it doesn't matter.

In the end, I'm just left guessing about the Buffy/Spike possible-lovefest. Let's just assume for a minute that he did and she did. He had to have done this because of her somehow. And it is a pretty romantic development. (romantic in a Xander-will-smash-his-head-into-a-wall-repeatedly way, maybe) But still it wouldn't be a fairytale, I know that. That was the whole deal with Angel when he left, right? That Buffy deserves somebody caring and funny and with a pulse, all at the same time. I sure never envied her love life. Vamp-human relationships: not good for the long-term stability.

But on the other hand, what is? True love doesn't come with a warranty these days. It has to end somewhere, right? The pop goes out of the relationship or you grow apart or someone cheats or... dies. And the other person has to keep going, keep breathing through the pain, every single day. If it'll end like that anyway, might as well go for it. Carpe diem. And the other one - caveat emptor. Buyer beware.

Thinking all this over tonight, I had dreams. Not so much about Spike, just a lot of things, most of them of the meaningless cheese-man variety. By the end of it, I was slipping and falling down a hole, reaching for Tara and falling. It was one of those where you feel yourself slam hard onto the bed as you wake up, and then there's the sweaty shaky factor. And if you're me, you have to wonder if something really did lift you up to the ceiling and let go.

I went downstairs for water. Buffy was at the computer, staring at this amateur Flash effect scrolling poems and watercolors across the screen. I'm pretty sure I saw a picture, Cassie Newton, just before she saw me and casually minimized the window with a smile and "Oh, hey."

"No sleep either?"

"Guess not." She was still fumbling with the mouse and keyboard, trying to bring up a search engine so it looked like she was busy, like she wasn't looking at a dead girl's website in the middle of the night. And as I was standing there, pretending I didn't see, brushing off my nightmare and keeping things light and sidekicky, I saw her suddenly get a spark of an idea and bring up the demon database.

She said, "It would really help to be in bed before my eyes close." She typed *ins* and erased it.

I said, "I was just in a bed. It's overrated." She typed *manifest sp* - and erased that too, back to the m.

She typed *mind c* - erase.

*mental* -

"Buffy..."

"Yeah?"

I looked over her shoulder more obviously than I was before, innocent. "Whatcha doing?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking- you know, this thing with Spike," she said with a little hand gesture that basically yelled *I am trying very hard to be flip about this*.

"What thing?"

She sighed. "It's just I go down there sometimes, and..." her face got serious. "And the other day I thought I felt something. But I wouldn't know how to..." she trailed off and gave up on the computer screen.

"You gotta get him out of there," I said.

"I know."

It took about half a minute for me to convince myself to sit down, as opposed to saying "well good luck" and running back upstairs. Instead I said, "You want to tell me?" quietly.

I didn't mean to phrase it like that exactly, it just came out. She looked at me, more confused than anything else. And then... she got it. She looked at me and got it.

And she said, "No."

So now we sit here, Buffy and me. Me with my water and her with a computer she doesn't know how to use. Me breathing through the pain and her starting to laugh, a did-I-just-say-that laugh that turns into tears. Me hugging her and insisting that it's okay and her saying things, things about the two of them hurting each other, that I can't even remember now. Me trying to put my growing up theory into words again to explain it to her, but she doesn't understand it, because I can't even understand it. And us realizing that maybe it doesn't matter.


End file.
